5 Kings Who Fought and Fell on the Front Lines

Kings are usually seen as privileged and often aloof dictators who lived extravagant lives of luxury at the expense of others detached from the everyday struggles and woes of their subjects in well-protected and lavish castles and palaces from where they waged Wars with little regard for the men who had to fight and die on their behalf instead carelessly spending the blood of others for personal gain and glory yet it was not always so every so often a king emerged who was not only present on the battlefield but also fought alongside his men risking his life and often suffering a terrible death in the process in doing so showing that not all leaders hide behind others here's a closer look at five Kings who actually fought their own Wars rather than getting others to do the dirty work for them but would pay the ultimate price for their courage number five constantine xi some leaders are born into impossible situations where no matter how able they might be doom and defeat simply cannot be avoided yet to the short reign of byzantine emperor constantine xi is surely one of history's most hopeless reduced to little more than the captain of a single city betrayed by his allies and surrounded on all sides by a powerful enemy lesser men would have taken the easy way out and accepted the enemy's offer to live out his remaining years in comfort and luxury in exchange for an unconditional surrender however feeling the weight of thousands of years of Roman history on his shoulders the thought of such an ignoble fate was simply too much to bear for the man who would be the last Roman Emperor instead choosing to fight alongside his men on the front lines until the bitter end as he desperately sought to stave off the inevitable conquest of Constantinople in a dramatic final showdown between a dying old world and an emerging new one the heroic last hours of the so called marble Emperor leading to his name becoming legend and an enduring symbol of resistance against impossible odds since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century Byzantine emperors in the east had fought with varying degrees of success to restore the once mighty Roman Empire to his former glory although called the Byzantine Empire by a modern historians the people living in the Eastern Roman Empire at the time viewed themselves as nothing less than true Romans keeping the flame of the ancient civilization alight for a further 1,000 years after the fall of Rome with the great city of Constantinople standing as a shining beacon of culture wealth and science yet by the time constantine xi assented to the coveted throne in 1449 the light of this once great civilization had all but gone out his so-called Empire reduced a little more than the city of Constantinople itself centuries of war political intrigue betrayal and mismanagement had left the onetime sprawling Byzantine Empire a sorry shadow of this former self beset by enemies on all sides the fortress city of Constantinople was the last foothold of the Romans in a sea of Ottoman control territory now fighting just for survival against the Turks the people who had stormed across Anatolia in a lightning series of conquests that it shocked Europe their fearsome armies and brilliant leaders proving almost unstoppable on the battlefield yet despite facing almost certain annihilation the new emperor was determined to go down fighting if this was to be the end of his great civilization then he would at least be remembered as having met it with courage and dignity not willing to go down in history as the man who simply gave the Empire away to save his own skin there would be no pleading for mercy and he would not go quietly without a fight charismatic brave and instilled with a great sense of duty to his people in another time Constantine might have been one of Byzantium greatest emperors however fate was against him nevertheless he immediately set to work stockpiling food and raising funds to repair the thick but crumbling millennia-old city walls realizing that an ottoman siege was all but inevitable yet with the Imperial Treasury orbit empty the destitute Emperor was unable to raise an army large enough to man the sprawling city walls and sub in desperation he looked West for allies from Catholic Europe for although the Orthodox East had split from the Roman Church surely his Christian brothers would rally to his defense aid from the West would always come with the price of submission to the Pope however there seemed to be little choice in the matter stuck between a rock and a hard place Constantine agreed to accept the primacy of the Pope pledging to convert his empire to Catholicism in return for military aid when the time came yet his own people were enraged at the deal with many preferring death or enslavement at the hands of the Turks to subservience to Rome bitter memories of the crusade a sack of Constantinople 250 years before had failed to dissipate with the passage of time and an alliance with the very people who had stripped the great city of its treasures was all but unthinkable to many who blamed the Crusaders for fatally weakening their empire and landing them in such dire circumstances in the first place by the time sultan mehmet ii ascended to the Ottoman throne in 1451 the Byzantines barely had 10,000 men to defend the city against a well-equipped Turkish host at least 10 times larger the young Sultan swearing to make Constantinople his new capital reinforced by just a handful of Italian adventurers Constantine gathered his men and prepared for the coming storm he did not have to wait long in the winter of 1452 the Ottomans arrived with somewhere between 100 and 200,000 men armed with massive cannons that had been forged with a single purpose to bring down Constantinople mighty walls the city possessed the best defenses in the medieval world but at the dawn of the age of gunpowder such defenses would prove to be obsolete with the city surrounded the turkish sultan made constantine a generous offer if he surrendered the city without a fight his life would be spared and he would be free to live out his remaining years in three acting as a puppet ruler in the south of Greece yet for Constantine such an offer was far too shameful to even consider according to eyewitness accounts the Emperor replied that the city was not his to give away and vowed to fight to the end Constantinople had stood for over a thousand years and been the site of countless scientific and cultural achievements and witnessed the some of history's most profound events Constantine was no doubt acutely aware that he was the last of the Roman emperors and therefore every word he spoke and every action he took would be recorded and examined by future generations for all of eternity unwilling to be remembered by history as the coward who gave the Empire away just to save his own insignificant life he resolved to meet his fate with the level of dignity and courage befitting of a Roman Emperor with the stage set he took up arms and prepared to fight for his life in a battle that he had no chance of winning with his scant force of just ten thousand men the Emperor held off the Ottoman onslaught for an incredible 53 days darting into where the fighting was thickest as he desperately fought to prevent the enemy from breaking into the city while keeping his Army's morale high in the face of certain defeat in fact the resistance was so strong that the Turkish sultan almost gave up on the siege in despair at the lack of progress his troops were making as each assault upon breaches in the city's great walls was thrown back by the Emperor and his men unwaveringly fighting atop piles of ruined corpses however fortune finally turned against the Byzantines when a Genoese detachment of defenders routed after the commander was injured and carried off the battlefield seeing the defenders in disarray the Sultan ordered his elite Janissaries to carry out a massive all-out attack that finally broke through the city's defenses on May the 29th 1453 realizing that the end was at hand Emperor Constantine threw off his Imperial robes and led the final band of survivors in one last hopeless charge against the victorious Ottomans storming towards the advancing enemy ward never to be seen again the last Roman Emperor disappearing into the mists of history exactly how he died remains unknown and his corpse was never located since he had removed all imperial regalia a mysterious end that has led the legends and myths springing up around his name yet regardless of his final fate his passing marked the final end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a new world as the last Bastian against further ultimate expansion into Europe fell number four Richard the third it's often said that history is written by the victors and in the case of the life and death of King Richard the third of England this old adage proves itself highly accurate maligned by history as an evil child murdering twisted hunchback who illegally usurped the English throne his conduct during the final moments of his life stand at odds with the cowardly and villainous reputation bestowed upon him by his enemies this so-called weak and wicked King personally leading his men on the front lines of one of the most brutal battles in history refusing to flee for his life after being betrayed by several of his key supporters instead choosing to fight to the bitter end despite his rumored physical disabilities suffering a savage death at the hands of his vengeful opponents in doing so becoming the last English King to be killed in combat his violent demise ending a struggle which had been simplistically and inaccurately painted as nothing less than a battle between good and evil the 15th century had seen the Wars of the Roses devastate England as the House of York fought the House of Lancaster for control of the English crown it was into this world of violence bloodshed and instability that Richard Plantagenet was born as a son of the powerful and ambitious third Duke of York a man who'd inherited a claim to the English throne which he intended to press no matter the cost with England ruled by the weak ineffective and frequently incapacitated Henry the sixth Richard's father the Duke of York had managed to rally enough disaffected Nobles to his calls to directly challenge the king for power however and the subsequent Battle of Wakefield in 1460 the clash between the two rival houses led to the death of Richard's father and one of his older brothers resulting in Edward Richard's sole remaining elder brother inheriting the Duke of York's claim to the throne Edward was every bit as formidable as his late father and within a year had finally been crowned as King Edward the fourth after a decisive victory over King Henry the sixth at the Battle of Talton in 1461 realising his family's long-held ambitions to seize the throne despite later being portrayed as a bank standing schemer Richard served his older brother faithfully for over two decades without any hint of treachery or disloyalty proving to be so reliable that when King Edward the fourth eventually died from poor health in April of 1483 he used his last remaining moments of life to reward his loyal younger brother by naming him in his will as protector of the realm until his young of year-old son and successor could be crowned as the new king arrangements were promptly made for the late Edward the fourth son to be crowned just two months later however the young boy would never receive his birthright the details regarding what transpired next are still disputed to this day however the boy and his younger brother are both said to have been imprisoned in the Tower of London by the protector of the realm the uncle Richard who publicly claimed that their father and mother's marriage was invalid making the children illegitimate and as such the claim to the crown null and void conveniently leaving Richard as next in line for the throne an assembly of Lords and commoners endorsed Richards claims and quickly crowned him King Richard the third such a move against his own nephews did not sit well with many and the two young boys were still viewed as the rightful heirs to the English throne and would likely become the magnet for future conspiracies against King Richard the third imprisoned within the Tower of London the two young boys were never seen again leading to rampant speculation that Richard had committed the monstrous sin of murdering his young nephews so as to remove any competing claims for the throne thus permanently securing the crown for himself however no evidence exists for this theory and there were many other ambitious men who would have profited from the removal of the two children nevertheless Richard the thirds reign was plagued by rebellion and disloyalty amongst the English nobility and despite overseeing a number of progressive reforms that included the introduction of the legal notion of innocent until proven guilty he struggled to maintain his base of power with Richard left weakened by these rebellions Henry Tudor a rival claimant from the old enemy the House of Lancaster decided to make his move in August 1485 he arrived from France with a sizeable invasion force and marched towards London intent on seizing the throne for himself the two sides eventually clashed at the Battle of Bosworth Field to settle for good and all which house would rule the kingdom Richard the third had arrived at the battle as the firm favourite possessing a significant edge in manpower however the day would not be his several of his key allies defected during the battle refusing to assist the King once the fighting commenced seeing the situation rapidly turning against him the Kings remaining loyalists urged him to flee to safety before it was too late but Richard refused swearing an oath that he would either win the battle as a king or die as one he was about to get his wish in a final gamble King Richard personally led a highly risky cavalry charge head-on into the enemy ranks this last-ditch all-out assault aimed directly at Henry Tudor's position in the hope that he could kill his rifle in direct combat and win the battle with a single swing of his sword incredibly Richard came within feats of achieving his with observers noting that the warrior king fought bravely and with great skill in the ensuing vicious melee unhorse announed justing champion and killing Henry Tudor's standard-bearer wavering in the face of this ferocious charge Henry Tudor fled behind the safety of his personal bodyguard and in the chaos that followed King Richard the third became separated from his men and was promptly surrounded with no escape route and now fighting alone against several heavily armed opponents Richard stood no chance and was brutally cut down his death signalling the end of the battle and the end of the Wars of the Roses the dead Kings bones would go missing until their eventual rediscovery centuries later in 2012 when his battered remains were found unceremoniously buried underneath a car park located near the site of the battle the heavily damaged skeleton offering a disturbing picture of the infamous Kings horrific last moments the wounds found on Richards bones show that his death was neither quick nor painless at least eleven injuries have been identified nine of which were found on just the skull inflicted by blunt and bladed weapons raining down upon his head while the further trauma to the inside of his pelvis point to the likelihood that his corpse was subjected to acts of ritual humiliation by Henry Tudor's men Richard's portrayal as a scheming hideous villain were cemented over 100 years after his death when Shakespeare wrote the world-famous play entitled Richard the third however with the descendants of the victorious Henry Tudor still in power it's unlikely that Shakespeare would have been foolish enough to show the man whose throne the Tudor seized in a positive light number three Vladislav the third the sudden loss of a king in battle will often leave is now a leaderless nation in chaos and turmoil however in the unique case of vladislav the third the young Kings brave but impetuous and foolhardy charge against a formidable enemy resulted in not only the loss of his head but also the complete destruction of a multinational Crusader army that was attempting to throw the Ottoman Turks out of Europe at Matic catastrophe for the entire Christian world which left three kingdoms without a king shattered the confidence of the European powers and paved the way for further Ottoman expansion into southeastern Europe directly leading to the fall of the ancient city of Constantinople as the disastrous defeat unleashed by vladislav steth deterred European states from offering military assistance to the dying Byzantine Empire as no leader was willing to risk incurring the wrath of the Ottoman Sultan and his invincible armies when his father died in 1434 the ten-year-old flatty Slav ascended to the polish throne for seven years the young king's reign proved uneventful however in 1440 the course of his life would be irreversibly altered when the king of Hungary and Croatia died rather than guard the throne for his unborn child and rightful heir the majority of the Hungarian Lords decided to instead offer the crown to the young Ladislav of Poland however this seemingly generous offer of an entire kingdom came with a hefty price tag Hungary was becoming increasingly threatened by the growing might of the Ottomans in the south and by joining the kingdoms of Hungary Croatia and Poland under one ruler the Hungarian Lords hoped to benefit from strength in numbers accepting the throne would prove something of a poisoned chalice for King vladislav as conflict with the Ottomans now became inevitable he had the Ottomans were not the only new enemy that vladislav acquired when receiving his new crowns the widow of the deceased king of Hungary was furious at the attempt to steal her unborn child's birthright and with the backing of powerful supporters she waged a two-year Civil War against vladislav who only managed to subdue her thanks to backing from the Pope but once again such support came with hefty conditions and vladislav was made to promise that when the time came he would personally lead a multinational crusade against the Ottomans this deal would seal his fate along with large swaths of southeastern Europe with the end of this civil war in Hungary and with rumors of Ottoman weakness following recent subpar performances on the battlefield the Pope decided that now was the time to strike back and on the 1st of 14:43 he declared his long wished for crusade honoring his earlier pledge to the Pope Vladislav led an army of 40,000 into the Balkans and engaged the Ottomans in several costly battles with mixed results however the multinational European Crusader army fought well enough to bring Marant ii to the negotiating table and a peace treaty was eventually signed in July 14 44 which forced the Ottomans to evacuate Serbia and Albania and pay 100 thousand florins in gold as compensation the treaty was supposed to establish a truce that would last for 10 years however for the Crusaders any deal signed with infidels was considered non-binding and before the ink was dry on the agreement plans were afoot to break the truce and continue the crusade believing that a lasting peace had finally been secured in Europe Sultan Murad ii abdicated his throne in favour of his 12-year old son wishing to spend his Twite ideas in reflective solitude after a lifetime of conquest however this decision to hand the Ottoman throne over to a child was seen as a sign of weakness and the Crusaders decided to take advantage of what appear to be Ottoman vulnerability however they were about to learn that appearances can be deceptive believing that the inexperienced boy Sultan would crumble in the face of renewed aggression the Pope and vladislav resumed their crusade pushing deep into Ottoman territory in an attempt to expel the Turkish presence from Europe once and for all yet rather than try to face the Crusaders alone the young Sultan wisely demanded that his experienced and battle-tested father come out of retirement and take control of the Ottoman armies on paper the Crusaders plan was sound a massive Venetian naval fleet was to blockade the Dardanelles trade so as to prevent Ottoman reinforcements arriving from Anatolia the stranding the smaller Ottoman armies already in Europe allowing them to be easily picked off and destroyed by the larger Crusader army however the crucial blockade failed to materialize by the time the crusade army reached the Black Sea port of Varna it was taken by surprise and surrounded by a much larger than anticipated Ottoman army with no escape route Vladislav was forced to do battle on November the 10th 1444 the fighting started well for the Crusaders however seeing the Ottomans retreat in the face of a Hungarian cavalry charge the impetuous Vati Slavs saw an opportunity to end the battle quickly and decisively against the advice of his experienced commanders the Polish King gambled everything on a surprise attempt to capture and kill the Ottoman Sultan leading 500 of his best cavalry in a risky charge against the Sultan's elite Janissary bodyguards the powerful charge smashed deep into the Ottoman ranks however as vladislav closed in on the Sultan's position he was surrounded pulled from his horse and decapitated his lifeless head unceremoniously impaled on a pike and held high so that the Crusaders behind could see the fate of the fallen king unsurprisingly the morale of the remaining Crusader forces evaporated and the not ceman counterattack resulted in a full-on retreat yet very few of the Christian soldiers would escape with their lives most cut down where they stood as the Crusader force was virtually annihilated the crushing defeat of the Crusades and shockwaves around Europe and the painful memory of the lost Crusader army and the fallen polish King would serve as a potent deterrent to anyone else who might have otherwise been considering striking at the Ottomans this almost fatal blow to the morale of the entire Christian world enabling the Ottomans to expand the control over the Balkans virtually unhindered paving the way for the fall of Constantinople as few were willing to risk incurring Ottoman wrath by sending military assistance to the besieged Byzantines number 2 Charles the 12th Kings are usually perceived as living indulgent lives of luxury from the comfort and safety of the vast passes leaving the dangerous and dirty business of war to their underlings however the extraordinary life and death of Charles the 12th of Sweden would show that not all men are cut from the same cloth this young monarch at the helm of a powerful Empire rejecting the extravagances of his royal contemporaries instead choosing to spend the majority of his life on campaign alongside common soldiers where his willingness to expose himself to mortal danger in the thick of battle would earn him the respect of his men and a reputation as an uncompromising militaristic leader who would rather die and reduce his empire to ash than surrender the warrior king longing to go out in a blaze of glory instead of slowly fading away into oblivion a wish which would eventually be granted by his death on the battlefield resulting in the end of the swedish empire as his destitute and war ravaged country was slowly picked apart by the overwhelming number of enemies she had acquired during her earlier meteoric rise to great power status at the turn of the 18th century the sparsely populated nation of sweden was nothing short of a military superpower despite only possessing limited natural resources with much of their land virtually uninhabitable and with no great surplus of manpower from which to draw upon the swedes had nevertheless managed to build a firm middle empire thanks to an incredible series of conquests carried out by an army which was capable of out matching anything the rest of europe could send against it the numerous legendary victories won against armies which often drastically outnumbered their own transforming this one's backwater nation on the edge of Europe into the preeminent power in the Baltic in the space of just one hundred years such an impressive inheritance is more than any new king could hope to receive from his predecessors however when the 15 year old Charles 12th ascended to the throne in 1697 he also had bestowed upon him a series of powerful enemies on all sides of his empire who wished for nothing more than to see this rising great power cut down to size the success Sweden had enjoyed in the previous century had come at the expense of her neighbors who had all suffered greatly as a result of her rapid expansion and were now circling like vultures around the new swedish king who they perceived to be nothing more than a foolish boy to be taken advantage of for their own gain yet Charles the 12th was about to show them at age and competence to not always go hand in hand in 1700 this anti Swedish coalition launched a coordinated attack just three years into Charles's reign with Russia striking from the east and Denmark Norway Saxony and Poland moving in from the south and west in response the untested Charles the 12th marched out of his capital to personally lead his armies in what would become a titanic 21-year long struggle that would not only consume the rest of his life but also irreversibly changed the face of Europe and result in Sweden's days as a great power crashing to an end outnumbered by as much as three to one and facing the combined might of an array of enemies who even on their own would have been difficult to overcome it must have seemed to European observers that Sweden and her young king would be easily crushed however Charles was not a leader prone to wallow in despair and instead of waiting for his enemies to come to him he launched a series of surprise preemptive strikes against his foes using overwhelming force concentrated against a single enemy in the hopes of inflicting a devastating defeat that would knock them out of the war Charles first moved against the old enemy of the Danes conducting a daring attack on the capital which forced them and then Allegiant vassals out of the war next he moved east with an army of just 10,000 men which he used to smash a Russian invasion for some 40,000 men strong at the Battle of Nava killing nearly 10,000 Russians and capturing a further 20,000 prisoners in doing so winning perhaps the most complete victory in Swedish history despite being just 18 years of age at the time the Saxons and the poles were defeated next resulting in the Polish King being replaced with a Swedish puppet leaving a humbled Russia as his sole remaining enemy after personally witnessing what Charles and his army was capable of on the battlefield and with the coalition he had so painstakingly built against the Swedes now smashed to pieces the Russians are wisely sued for peace however unwilling to accept anything less than total victory Charles rejected the Russian offer prepare to march on Moscow the invasion of Russia started well for Sweden with Charles winning some initial victories during the summer however with the Russians continually refusing battle and adopting a scorched earth retreat the swedish king found himself stranded deep inside russia and desperately short of supplies when the winter of 1708 two 1709 arrived a winter which just so happened to be one of the coldest ever to descend upon Europe in recorded history as winter storms raged and temperatures plummeted thousands of Swedes perished in the snow and ice a situation made more severe by the disastrous lack of winter clothing supplied to the Troops these massive numbers of deaths fatally weakening an army which had already been heavily depleted by years of constant war yet even at the lowest point King Charles did not shirk from the hardships and jawed by his men choosing to sleep in common soldiers tents fight in the front ranks and suffer through the same torments that he expected his warriors to bear without complaint rejecting anything resembling royal comfort or privilege in stark contrast to the terrible plight of the Swedes the Russians waited out the winter in the safety of the well supplied camps happy to let mother nature do most of the killing for them the unrelenting cord inflicting a butcher's bill so high that by the time spring arrived the cream of the swedish army had been wiped out with more than half of their men lost in the cruel snows the exhausted and starving remnants of the once proud army that had marched into Russia just months before subsequently easily crushed out the disastrous Battle of Poltava by a Russian force over twice their size Charles the 12th was forced to flee into exile finding sanctuary in the Ottoman Empire where he was held as a prisoner in all but name for over four years until unable to bear captivity any longer he launched a daring escape riding on horseback across Europe and back to the safety of home Charles returned to find Sweden once again at war with the same enemies he had earlier defeated the anti Swedish coalition reforming after the disastrous invasion of Russia which had left his kingdom in a weak and vulnerable position Charles once again took control of his army and marched out to war heading west into Norway where he hoped to force the Danes to sue for peace he would never see home again while conducting a siege of a Norwegian fortress Charles was struck in the head by a projectile and instantly killed without their warrior king to lead them Swedish resolve collapsed on the spot and a new era of defeat was ushered in as all the territory won in the previous century was carved up fans seized by her many enemies the Sun had set on Sweden's time as a great power while a new global force arose in the east in the form of an emerging Russia a nation that would grow into a colossal superpower and changed the world in the process number 1 Harold Godwinson and Harald Hardrada the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 was a final showdown between two mighty Kings fighting over one throne however neither monarch would live to see the claim fulfilled both suffering eerily similar deaths at the end of an arrow as the throne instead fell into the hands of a third King who was content to wait on the sidelines while his enemies bled each other dry swooping in at to the final hour to finish off the weakened victor winning an entire nation in the process as the last man standing in a war of three kings that would have far-reaching consequences for the wider world the spark that ignited this destructive struggle for power took place at the beginning of 1066 when King Edward the Confessor of England died without having sired any children leading to a succession crisis which threatened to escalate into outright war as three powerful men claimed the throne a prominent English noble named Harold Godwinson managed to maneuver his way onto the throne and was crowned king the day after Edward the Confessor died however two other kings from across Europe were not about to let their own claims fade away without a fight although Harold Godwinson came from a wealthy and well-connected anglo-saxon family he had no blood ties to the dead King and his claim rested on the fact that while on his deathbed the late King Edward supposedly nominated Godwin sand as his successor yet this version of events was doubted by many the Godwinson family had seen their fortunes rise and fall and then rise again and as a child Harold was sent into exile in Ireland when his father fell out of royal favour however this exile would prove to be temporary and the Godwinson would soon regain their lost titles and position becoming one of the most powerful families in England yet a childhood in exile was not the only challenge Harold would have to overcome when the harsh rule of his brother Tostig caused the people of Northumbria to rise up and revolt Harold was forced to side with the rebels banishing his brother in an effort to prevent the unrest from escalating however such a move would come back to haunt him as his embittered brother swore to one day exact revenge fleeing to Norway and the royal court of the legendary King Harald Hardrada like his soon-to-be nemesis Howard Godwinson the Norwegian King had also had a less than stable childhood getting his first taste of battle at just 15 years of age when he found himself in a vicious fight for his life at war in support of his half-brother who was attempting to seize the Norwegian throne the attempt failed miserably with his half-brother accured in action and a badly wounded Harald was forced to flee for his life to Kiev in Rus where his military skills would win him gainful employment and eventually lead to him travelling to the legendary imperial city of Constantinople where he would serve in the Byzantine emperors elite Varangian guard a prestigious bodyguard unit sole he made up of formidable Viking warriors he fought with skill and distinction rising to become the commander of the guard and eventually seeing action and adventure all over the Mediterranean and Middle East his work for the Emperor's made him an incredibly rich man wealth which he intended to put to use eventually funding a violent bid for the Norwegian throne deposing his own nephew in the process with a lifetime of war behind him and a powerful Kingdom under his control the ambitious Harald Hardrada looked West England with envious eyes when news of King Edward the confessors death reached his shores and with his forces bolstered by the support of the new English king's brother toss stick he prepared to once more go to war in the hopes of adding another crown to his collection in September of 1066 the Viking army under Harald Hardrada landed in northern England easily sweeping aside local resistance as it prepared for the inevitable showdown with the main English force which was now marching north from London to evict this foreign presence yet realizing the danger these intruders posed King Harold Godwinson led the English army on a grueling forced march that enabled them to traverse a huge distance in just four days the sudden arrival in the north taking the unprepared Vikings by surprise the two armies clashed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge with both King Harold Godwinson and King Harald Hardrada leading their men from the front however there could only be one victor Harald Hardrada is said to have died a stereotypically Viking death in the thick of battle charging forward in a berserk rage wildly hacking of the countless foes who surrounded him until his rampage was finally brought to an end by an arrow to the throat thus concluding not only an extraordinary life but the life of the man generally considered to be the last great Viking leader his defeat and death marking the end of the age of the Vikings a warrior culture which had terrorized so much of Europe for so long with the King dead Viking resolve melted away and their entire army was virtually annihilated however despite vanquishing one of the most formidable warrior kings in Europe how would God Winston's incredible victory would prove to be temporary and just three weeks later he too would join the fallen Norwegian king in the next life exhausted from the four-day forced march and with their numbers severely depleted from the battle with the Vikings the English army now had to march all the way back across the country to contend with yet another invasion this I'm from a third contender for the English throne Duke William of Normandy a man who had wisely sat on the sidelines while his two enemies had tried to destroy each other and was now poised to take advantage of the battle weary Victor seven thousand Englishmen under King Harold met around 10,000 Normans under Duke William at the Battle of Hastings yet despite holding the high ground King Harald's men proved to be ill disciplined ignoring his orders to hold their position and instead allowing themselves to be lured out of formation and down from the hill when the Normans pretended to flee in panic yet this retreat was an expertly executed ruse and as the English charged down from the hill the Normans turned around and attacked in the chaos of the subsequent fight around six thousand men were killed including the English King Harold who is said to have been shot through the eye with an arrow while fighting alongside his men many of them falling on the same bloody patch of grass whether dead King lay with two warrior Kings killed in battle in the space of just three weeks England fell on the Duke Williams control the rise to power of this new Norman dynasty resulting in centuries of war bloodshed and rivalry as Williams relatives and successors launched a series of unending invasions of France to press their own inherited claims to French territory so those are my choices for five Kings who fought and died in battle let me know which other Kings he would have included in the comments below and I'll see you again soon

Channel: Unknown5

Views: 654,202

Keywords: history, documentaries, documentary, top 5, unknown 5, unknown5, list videos, education, entertainment, medieval history, kings, leadership, ancient history, 1066, byzantine, 1453, byzantium, byzantine empire, famous leaders, roman empire, ottomans, richard III, hastings, varna

Id: 0oPCtYA47rE

Length: 37min 59sec (2279 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 18 2019